


only fools rush in

by kathillards



Category: Power Rangers R.P.M.
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Street Racing AU, cybernetics and drug wars and found family and gays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-23 13:51:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17684696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kathillards/pseuds/kathillards
Summary: Summer has a bad habit of picking up strays.





	only fools rush in

**Author's Note:**

  * For [oryx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oryx/gifts).



> meant for this to just be a little treat based on the "banter/cars/guys being dudes" prompt but uh :^) it got out of hand...  
> much thanks to tabby for being my ideas-bouncer <3

“This is your dumbest idea yet, Summer.”

She flips her hair, nearly smacking him in the cheek with a curtain of blond, and doesn’t bother to apologize. Scott makes a face at the back of her head but she’s already moving, crawling through the tiny vent space and further down to where their destination, presumably, is. Not that he thinks much of her destination, either.

“You’ve had a million dumb ideas,” Summer says after a moment, pausing in between the air vents so their voices won’t float down to the prison guards. “I think I deserve at least one. And you don’t even know if it’s dumb.”

“Flynn said it was dumb, and you know he doesn’t say that lightly.”

“ _Flynn’s_ dumb,” she grouses. “We need a fourth. You guys haven’t found one. I did. So there.”

Sometimes, it’s easy to forget that Summer grew up very used to getting her way. Scott sighs and continues after her, knees and elbows bumping as they sneak through the vents and then stop, after what seems like five hours, in front of the right one.

“That’s him,” Summer says in satisfaction. “That’s our guy.”

Scott leans over her to peer through the bars. “ _That’s_ our guy?”

He doesn’t look very impressive, sitting on the floor in his prison-regulation orange suit, hair unkempt and gaze unfocused. He’s about their age, early twenties, with a mop of dark hair that dearly needs a cut and an angular jawline, but that’s about the only thing noteworthy about him. He certainly doesn’t _look_ like he’d be great in a race.

“You know we need someone who’s _awesome_ , right?” Scott hisses at Summer. “Not just someone who’s _kinda good_ behind a wheel.”

“You haven’t seen him,” says Summer simply, and wrenches the bars of the vent loose easily. She somersaults down and lands gracefully on her feet, leaving Scott rolling his eyes up in the vent.

“Show-off,” he mutters.

“Hi, Dillon,” Summer say, as cheerfully as if they were meeting at the farmer’s market and not breaking him out of prison. “Remember me?”

Dillon’s gaze slides over her, disdainful and bored. “You’re that chick I saved before the cops got to me.”

“Summer,” she says, still bright. “And this is Scott. We’re here to break you out.”

Scott lands down next to her and straightens himself up to take a good look at this miracle driver she claimed she needed to round out their team. He’s got bruises littering his face—either from the altercation with the Corinth police or from prison fights—and a glower so fierce, it’s almost impressive. He flexes his hand, shaking it out, but doesn’t otherwise make a move towards them or even react to Summer at all. His whole gaze is focused on Scott, calculating and—maybe—curious.

“Aren’t you the son of the Colonel?” Dillon asks.

Scott bites down his first response. “Maybe. What’s it matter?”

He’s used to this question—other racers taunting him through car windows, or scribbled on threatening notes shoved under their garage door—everyone wondering why the son of Colonel Truman is out on the streets at night.

What he’s not used to is the way Dillon tilts his head, like he’s reconsidering him. Like he’s slotted a different puzzle piece into place.

“You coming or not?” Summer asks, already striding forward to take hold of his handcuffs. “Unless you’d rather wither away in here.”

“I’m actually doing fine, thanks for asking.” But Dillon doesn’t protest when she pulls out her lockpick and begins the process of opening up his cuffs. “Do you know why they still have those on me?”

It sounds like a rhetorical question. He’s still looking at Scott when he says it.

“Because you’re dangerous?” Scott guesses, adding just a touch of irony to his voice.

Summer tugs the handcuffs off and Dillon stares down at his freed hands for a moment—just one—and then he moves.

Scott doesn’t even have time to blink before Dillon’s hand is curling into his jacket, slamming him back against the wall of the cell. On instinct alone he manages to wrench out his knife and point it at Dillon’s heart, cutting a hole through his shirt.

“Cybernetics,” he coughs out, watching the way Dillon twists his wrist back into position, how the miniscule amount of blood he’s spilled drips down his shirt. “You’re enhanced.”

“That’s a nice way of putting it,” Dillon says, and releases him. “Why didn’t you fight?”

“Well, I hate to disappoint Summer.”

Summer rolls her eyes. “If you’re done posturing, we have a prison break to continue?”

“Actually,” says Dillon, for the first time displaying a reasonable amount of human emotion and turning a slightly rueful smile on Summer. “I need to break someone else out, first.”

“You’re kidding me, right?” Scott demands. “The guards are gonna be here any minute.”

Dillon smirks at him. “Then you better move fast.”

 

 

 

Ziggy is absolutely delighted by the Garage when the four of them finally escape the prison and hightail it out of Corinth and into the wasteland streets. Flynn is waiting at home, working on his truck while the computer screens blink and beep ominously at their two new reluctant recruits, Dr. K analyzing them the second they come through the door.

Flynn raises his eyebrows. “Thought we were just breaking out one?”

Scott rotates his shoulder with a wince—a prison guard had gotten a good punch in when they’d tried to liberate Ziggy and he’d accidentally created a chain of various disasters. “Apparently, they’re a package deal.”

“We only need a fourth,” says Dr. K’s strange mechanized voice from the computers. “We don’t have a car for a fifth yet and, in any event, I doubt Mr. Grover could even handle a race.”

“Mr. Grover?” Ziggy blinks, looking around. “Oh! That’s me. Uh, well, you know, I’ve never actually done any ‘street racing’, at least, you know, not in a big-time race, or even in a little-time race, or actually—”

“Have you ever driven a car?” Dillon interrupts.

Ziggy wilts. “No.”

“Great,” Summer says, clapping her hands. “Then you can help Flynn with the mechanics.”

“Hey,” Flynn protests. “ _I_ know how to drive a car.”

“You’ve lost your last two races.”

“Only because the Venjix team is full of bloody _cheats_ —”

Scott restrains a grin and heads off towards the kitchen to get an ice pack for his shoulder while Flynn, Summer, and Ziggy continue to debate the merits of Flynn’s driving and Ziggy’s engineering skills and the various ways the Venjix team cheats or doesn’t cheat. He gets to the fridge before he notices that Dillon is shadowing him.

“Can I help you?”

Dillon crosses his arms. The garage lights are low and gold over his face, softening his edges even with the storm clouds that always seem to be gathering in his eyes. Scott looks away first.

“I never got an explanation,” Dillon says slowly. “Why’d you come rescue me?”

“Summer has a bad habit of picking up strays.”

Dillon frowns, lips curling. “And you?”

Scott takes a moment to let the silence stretch, grabbing an ice pack and a bottle of water from the fridge before he turns back around to look at Dillon. There is, alarmingly, something fragile about the way Dillon is staring at him, the spaces between the silence, between them.

He covers it up with a shrug and tosses the water bottle at Dillon, watching as his hand jumps up to catch it on autopilot. “I like taking chances. And she’s right. We do need a fourth.”

 

 

 

 

The Wasteland Strip, as the racers call it, is a wide expanse of land where no flowers grow anymore, no trees and no cityscapes. Out here, there are only trails, roads marked by flags on sticks and shoddily-positioned street lamps that some kind soul had thought to rig up long ago. It’s a place for demons and ghosts, as Flynn likes to say—but Scott’s not really superstitious like that.

“Look,” says Dillon when they drive out into the center of the strip, where all the races start. He’s standing in front of the car, stubbornness in every line of his face, as Scott, Summer, and Flynn gather around him. “I like cars. I like driving. But I’m not sure I’m the best fit for this, uh, _team_.”

“RPM,” Flynn corrects. “It’s what we call ourselves.”

“And RPM stands for…?”

“Racing Performance Machines,” answers Summer, completely seriously.

Dillon looks like he’s trying very hard not to laugh in her face. “Are all the team names that subtle?”

“You have a better idea?” Scott raises an eyebrow. “Mr. Team Player?”

Dillon rolls his eyes. “I don’t know. You could at least call yourselves something cool. The Renegades. Generation Seven. The Black Wolves.”

“What does Generation Seven mean?” Flynn asks, puzzled.

A frown flickers over Dillon’s face briefly, just enough for Scott to catch, like he also doesn’t know where that name came from. “Dunno. Just sounds cool.”

“Black Wolves is super cliché,” Summer says. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. It’s just a name. What we need to know is, are you with us? Or should we turn you back over to the Eagle Squadron?”

Dillon’s gaze slides to Scott. “Suppose that depends on Junior Colonel here.”

“There’s no such thing as a junior colonel,” Flynn puts in.

Scott scoffs. “You’d get off easier with my dad than out here on the tracks, believe me. If you can’t handle it, just go.”

“Oh, I can handle it.” Dillon pushes himself off the hood of the car to face Scott properly. He looms over the three of them like a shadow, but there’s a hint of a smile on his face, a ghost quickly swallowed. “I just don’t know if _you_ can handle it.”

Scott exchanges a look with Flynn and Summer. Both of them answer with grins.

“Alright, cyborg,” he says, and knocks his hand into Dillon’s shoulder, making him sway. “We got two cars. We got the Strip to ourselves until it gets dark. How about it?”

Dillon looks momentarily unconvinced. “What happens when it gets dark?”

“Free for all,” Flynn explains, gesturing out into the emptiness of the wastelands. “Every team’s gotta train. Some of them like to sabotage. We had a sign-up sheet with practice times but… nobody was really into that.”

“It’s just a bunch of rogues and scoundrels out here, Dillon,” says Summer, patting him on the arm. Her smile is sunny but there’s an undercurrent of tension, anxiety and nerves. They all need a win. They all need the Venjix team to lose. “You sure you’re up for it?”

Dillon meets Scott’s gaze again, a spark burning up inside. “If I win… I get to pick my car and then do whatever I want with it.”

Scott holds out his hand. “And if I win, you join our team _and_ you have to participate in our movie nights.”

Dillon hesitates with his palm hovering just above Scott’s. “Do we get to vote on the movies?”

“No,” Scott smirks. “It’s a turn-based system. Very efficient.”

“You guys are the worst,” Dillon grumbles, but he meets Scott’s hand anyway and shakes it, steady and somehow sure. It’s a strange sensation, coming from a guy who seems to have so little things in his life that he’s sure about—not a last name, not a home town, not anything. The press of their hands is warm, pulses jumping—something fragile, yet again.

Scott shoves those thoughts away and puts on his most winning smile. “Just remember the rules of the road.”

“There are no rules of the road.”

Scott grins. “Exactly.”

 

 

 

When he was ten years old, his brother Marcus took him just beyond the Corinth city limits where the dome is a distant, shimmering thing in the backdrop and there’s a sprawling maze of streets that run off into the wastelands. It was a secret, sneaking out behind their father’s back, the rush of adrenaline filling him as they joined the crowds at the center of the Wasteland Strip, everyone gathered to watch the biggest race of the season.

The cars were like monsters, roaring past him. Dust and dirt flew into his face, smoke filling the air. He’d never seen so many colors—sleek machines of red and gold, blue and black—all streaking past him in a rumbling array. Under the moonlight, they looked like demons—something magical, something amazing.

Scott curls his fingers around the stick shift, shaking thoughts of his brother from his head. He keeps that memory curled deep inside his heart, for when he needs a burst of energy or sheer rage to finish off a race. But he doesn’t, he thinks, need it today.

The sun is slowly starting to sink when Summer fires the starter pistol. Scott allows three seconds—racing isn’t about rushing, Marcus had always told him; everyone else will stamp on the gas pedal and burn themselves out too fast—before he starts, waiting to see Dillon shoot off in his black car like a jet.

But Dillon waits, too— _one, two, three_ —and then the two of them are racing, red and black streaking through the streets, dust rising in clouds behind them.

In his rearview mirror, he can see Summer and Flynn still standing there, watching them go. A flash of blue and yellow in the distance, and then they’re gone.

Scott looks ahead—another thing Marcus taught him: _Don’t look at anyone else. Don’t look behind you. Only look at your path. It’s the same on a bike or a car or a plane. Always know where you’re coming from and where you’re going._

He knows where he’s going—this particular track is shaped like a figure eight, looping around an abandoned car yard in two lazy circles before ending up back at the beginning. They call it the Lion’s Loop, after the lion-shaped spaceship that had crashed in the old car park ten years ago. The streets are marked with silver lights, as opposed to the gold of the Solaris Circle or the dangerous red of the Phoenix Path, and it’s an easy enough race for beginners. Simple, quick, and roots out those who don’t have the stomach for street racing.

Dillon, clearly, is not one of those. He careens his car around Scott’s, getting so close that sparks run between their tires, and then jets off down the path, silver lights gleaming in his wake. The track is wide enough for three cars, so he doesn’t _have_ to drive so close—but then, neither does Scott.

 Beneath his hands, he can hear the engine humming, vibrating with the speed and the thrill of the chase. Unbidden, Scott can feel a smile stretching his cheeks, the wind rushing at him in bursts of chill. _This_ —this is the part he loves, not the cheating and the sabotage and the dirty tricks that the Venjix team pulls. Not always looking over his shoulder for someone to try and start a turf war, or just to beat him up for being the Colonel’s son, or even just for the fun of it.

He loves the race, the air hissing between his teeth, the way the path unfolds like a video game in front of him. The lights sparkling and the buzz of another car just next to him, engine roaring, the driver digging his heel into the gas pedal just as Scott skids past him.

“Too much for you?” he calls, his voice carrying through the speakers in their ears. Dr. K had rigged up various communication devices for the team to use out in the Wastelands or on the race tracks; they had only entrusted Dillon with the most basic version of them.

“You wish,” Dillon mutters, his voice low and delighted in Scott’s ears. A shiver runs down his back just as Dillon’s car veers so close to his that he has to swerve just a bit out of the path to avoid getting hit—and gives him the lead.

“Fuck you,” Scott says, but his tone is less annoyed than it should be. He’s used to dirtier tricks—Tenaya, the top racer of the Venjix team, once detached her robotic hand and let it loose in his car while they were racing, so he’s at least thankful that Dillon hasn’t tried _that_ move yet.

Dillon’s good—he’s really good; Scott can see why Summer wanted him on their team—but Scott knows the tracks better, knows his car better, and also knows better than showing off for the sake of it.

He pushes on his engine until it’s roaring with the pressure of the gas and bursts right past Dillon’s car in a blaze of red to complete the loop and come to a screeching stop in front of the old spaceship just four seconds before Dillon does. With the black car next to him, and no immediate fear that Tenaya has asked one of her burly, monstrous teammates to jump him if he wins, Scott takes a moment to drop his head back onto his seat and catch his breath.

Dillon’s voice comes slow over the speaker, just as out of breath as Scott. “Do I at least get a say in the movie night snacks?”

Scott has to stop himself from laughing in surprise. “You got something against popcorn?”

When he looks over, Dillon makes a face at him through the glass of their windows. “I was thinking more like alcohol.”

“We have beer,” Scott offers. Dillon’s grimace only tightens. “And vodka.”

“…I can live with that.”

 

 

 

Their movie night is three days later, and Scott returns home from a stealth visit back to Corinth to grab some groceries—and, at Dillon’s request, a better variety of vodka—to find that Ziggy has completely rearranged the living space of the Garage to suit a slumber party rather than how it usually is: their old, worn couch (possibly stolen) and a pile of blankets and pillows (probably not stolen) in case anyone gets cold.

It had been simple, when it was just him and Summer and Flynn. But now the couch is backed up and lined with pillows along the edges, blankets of every color creating what looks like a massive bed in the center of the room, more pillows arranged in piles all across, and the TV already streaming the fifth Harry Potter movie (they only had two, five, and eight, salvaged from a used book store) in the dim lights. It looks more like a blanket fort than anything else.

Ziggy sits in the center, beaming, and hits pause when he comes in. “Welcome to the first official RPM slumber party!”

Scott blinks at him, then at Summer, who is smiling fondly from the kitchen as she opens a bag of popcorn into a bowl. “Slumber party?”

“Apparently we’ve all reverted back to being twelve years old,” Dillon mutters. He’s sitting on one of the stools at the counter, drinking a can of coffee, and Summer tosses some popcorn at his face when she moves around to get to the blanket fort.

“Don’t be mean,” she chides. “I think it’s a great idea. Good for team morale.”

“Aye, couldn’t agree more!” Flynn slides down the staircase bannister wearing a blue jersey and with black and yellow face paint on his cheeks. “Go Hufflepuff, right?”

Dillon looks almost pained when he asks “What the fuck is a Hufflepuff?”

“Mate, have you never watched a Harry Potter movie?” Flynn demands. “God, no wonder you’re so depressed.”

“I’m not depressed.”

“You’re kind of depressed,” Ziggy agrees. Dillon turns his scowl on him and Ziggy quickly drops it. “Don’t worry, the fifth movie is really good!”

“I always thought the fifth one was the worst one,” Scott mutters to Dillon as he walks into the kitchen to put the groceries away. If he’s not mistaken, Dillon’s frown fades into a smirk for a millisecond.

“Okay, guys, we’re starting!” Summer calls from where she is situated on the blanket fort, the bowl of popcorn in the center of it. “Dillon, you’re obligated to watch at least half the movie before you go to sleep.”

“I am _not_ sleeping on that blanket monstrosity,” Dillon informs her. “But fine.”

Scott grins and hands over the bottle of vodka and a glass to Dillon as Ziggy presses play on the movie again and Flynn flops down on the couch, his legs dangling over the side of it. Usually, Summer and Flynn fall asleep while watching the movie and Scott covers them up in blankets before he goes to his own room, but the blanket monstrosity does look comfortable enough to sleep in for at least one night.

“Do you even sleep?” he asks Dillon curiously, taking a bottle of beer out of the fridge for himself.

“Surprisingly, yes, I do have to complete basic bodily functions.” Dillon seems almost offended as he takes a gulp of his vodka. “I’m not _all_ cyborg.”

“Could’ve fooled me.” Scott hops up on the stool next to him to watch the Dementor attack on the screen. He figures that’s the end of the conversation, but when he chances a glance back over at Dillon, he’s still staring at him. His gaze is black and electric, like he’s searching for answers that Scott doesn’t have, like he’ll find something etched into the lines of his face.

Scott wants to look away, but it’s harder than he expected. He reaches for his beer and opens the bottle to distract himself.

Finally, Dillon speaks, right when the CGI magic spells start lighting up the TV screen. “First race of the season is in ten days.” His voice is an attempt at being casual that doesn’t quite get there. “Sure you trust me for it?”

“Not at all,” Scott assures him, grinning. “But that’s why we have teams. If one person flakes out—or, I don’t know, combusts into flames while driving—we have back-ups.”

“Mm.” Dillon ponders this over another swig of vodka. “And if I don’t beat Venjix—what happens?”

“If _we_ don’t beat Venjix,” Scott corrects. “Start acting like you’re on a team, hotshot. Makes it easier when we have to yell at you over the comms.” He pauses for a moment, then adds, “And Tenaya’s insufferable when she wins, so try not to let her.”

Dillon snorts, but his expression is still too heavy when he scans Scott’s face. “You’re keeping secrets,” he accuses. “Thought we were on a _team_ , but you guys won’t even tell me what the big deal is about Venjix.”

Scott can’t help but think Summer would be a better choice for this conversation; she’s always so steady in the face of Dillon’s moods. But she’s engrossed in the movie and so he sits here, his back starting to ache from the stool, and pretends he can’t feel the way Dillon’s gaze strikes him all the way down to his bones.

“We have reason to believe Venjix is using the money from the races and the gambling to traffic drugs into Corinth,” he admits lightly, as if this is all very commonplace. “If we can keep them from getting at the money, it’ll put a dent in their plans. Plus, we get more money for our cars, more bragging rights, more power on the streets—it’s a win-win.”

“Ahh.” Dillon leans back, knees knocking against Scott’s as he does. “So that’s why you’re here. The Colonel’s son out in the Wasteland Strip… makes sense.”

“My father doesn’t exactly… approve of my methods.”

“No?” Dillon raises an eyebrow. “Is it because you might kill yourself?”

“Hey,” Scott says in affront. “I’ll have you know, I’m the best racer the wastelands have had since TJ Johnson himself.”

“I still don’t know who that is.”

“Whatever.” Scott drums his fingers on the countertop, his other hand fiddling with the cap of his beer bottle. “My brother died in a street racing accident,” he finally confesses, voice low and quiet as he fixes his gaze on the Harry Potter movie. “That’s why Dad didn’t want me to come out here. Also because I knocked out a few of his officers escaping Corinth.”

Dillon is silent for a moment, then asks, “A few?”

“Like five,” Scott admits. “They were trying to keep me under house arrest, so… they had it coming.”

“I bet.” Dillon’s tone seems to hold the hint of a laugh. It’s the first time, Scott thinks, that he’s ever heard that sound. “What were you under house arrest for?”

He grins at the memory. “Summer and I snuck out of the dome to watch a race. That’s where we met Flynn. And Summer hijacked a car so we could participate.”

Dillon stares at him, then looks over at Summer, who is tossing popcorn into the air for Flynn to catch in his mouth. “You guys are insane.”

“Probably.” Scott reaches over to snag Dillon’s bottle of vodka. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

Dillon’s expression is begrudgingly amused as his gaze shifts from the other three to Scott. He doesn’t say anything, but a little bit of the tension seems to drain out of his shoulders, his knees back to bumping into Scott’s as they sit there at the counter and watch Harry Potter and the silhouettes of Ziggy and Flynn miming the spells while Summer laughs.

 

 

 

“Come on, there’s no way that’s gonna—”

The jet propels itself upwards into the sky in a streak of blazing blue and explodes into a firework in the late evening sky as Ziggy shuts his mouth and Flynn claps him on the back, looking pleased.

“Perfect for our inevitable victories, eh?” Flynn beams.

“And also for blowing up our opponents?” Dillon asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Hey, we don’t cheat,” Summer says firmly. “Unless Venjix cheats first, and then it cancels it out.”

“That’s not how cheating works,” says Dillon.

“It is out here!”

“Hey,” Scott interrupts, still staring up at the sky. “Can you make the firework into different shapes? Or could we make it say something like ‘Suck it Venjix’—”

He barely has time to get the words out before a knife whizzes past him and lands embedded into a large rock gathering dust in the quarry. Scott whirls and catches a glimpse of a girl with long, dark hair and a vicious smile advancing towards him—before Dillon steps in front of him and shoves his shoulder into her, knocking her backwards.

“Venjix!” Flynn curses under his breath. “What the fuck are you lot doing here, this is _our_ quarry—”

Tenaya rights herself and kicks Dillon in the guts, sending him careening away from her. “Venjix wants a quarry,” she says in a sing-song voice, advancing on Flynn. “And what Venjix wants, we get.”

“You’re not getting our turf,” Summer snarls, but then two of Tenaya’s square-faced, broad-shouldered, ugly Venjix teammates are descending on her and Ziggy screams as one of them picks him up and tosses him away like a ragdoll.

Scott dodges a kick from one of the guys and goes right for Tenaya—she’s the dangerous one, the ringleader, the—and then her hand detaches and takes him by the collar and slams him into a rock while she walks slowly, purposefully towards Dillon instead.

“Isn’t this interesting?” she murmurs, blocking his punch and then his kick with unfair ease. “A cybernetic on the RPM team…”

“Dillon, look out!” Scott yells, still struggling against her robotic hand.

Dillon turns, but not in time to miss the great knee kick that one of the other Venjix guys slams into his lower back, and he goes crumpling to the ground, coughing up blood.

“Relax,” Tenaya says, her smile dangerous, kneeling down next to him. “I just want to know if you’re like me.”

“Why the fuck would I be anything like you?” Dillon spits at her.

Tenaya’s robotic hand jerks itself free from Scott and goes sailing back to her, and she reattaches it and waves it over Dillon’s face, summoning an intricate holographic grid of blue and silver in between the two of them. Scott starts running, but one of her teammates, a lanky, pointy-eared guy armed with two daggers steals his attention.

“Would you look at that?” Tenaya’s voice is distant, far from the pounding of his heart in his ears, even though she’s only a few feet away— “You _are_ enhanced. Just like me.”

Scott rams his elbow into the guy’s chest and starts towards Dillon and Tenaya again. Flynn tosses him a stolen knife and Summer trips one of the other Venjix guys to clear his path and he aims it at Tenaya’s arm as he runs.

She moves too fast though. The heel of her boot nails him in the shin and he nearly goes down, but Ziggy chooses that moment to come charging out of his hiding place behind a rock, carrying a plastic chair, and yells “RPM!” as he throws it at Tenaya.

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Dillon struggling to his feet—with Tenaya preoccupied, Scott moves over, trying to get to him first—but one of the other Venjix guys is there and then there’s a fist coming right for his head.

The last thing he hears is Dillon’s voice calling his name and the sound of fireworks going off, blazing red in the sky.

 

 

 

“You—” Dillon jabs the cotton puff soaked in alcohol at his shoulder. “Are—” Another one at his forearm. “An _idiot_.” A final, decisive one on his chest.

Scott sighs, closing his eyes against the sting of the alcohol in his wounds. “You’ve mentioned this a few times.”

“You shouldn’t have turned around,” says Dillon, his scowl fierce. “You shouldn’t have changed your damn path. Isn’t that one of the racing rules?”

“Racing has no rules,” Scott snaps. “Anyway, that guy was going to beat up _someone_. It was either you or me, I just got there first.”

“ _I_ could have handled it,” Dillon says, rolling his eyes. “In case you forgot, I’m a cyborg.”

“In case _you_ forgot,” Scott says, “we’re a _team_. Cyborg or not. We don’t let teammates face Venjix thugs alone.”

Dillon exhales, heavy and annoyed, and slumps back in his chair. Scott stays sitting on the bed, not even reaching to reapply his bandages, just listening to Dillon’s breathing and the soft sounds of their teammates whispering in the other room, blocked by the closed door of their makeshift medical room. It’s mostly just a spare bedroom, sterile and white, but they keep all their supplies here.

Scott breaks the silence first. “You know you’re not actually a cyborg, right?”

Dillon flexes his hand and shoots him a questioning look. “Wanna tell that to the mechanical parts in my body?”

“You’re cybernetically enhanced,” Scott says. “It’s not the same thing. If you weren’t human, I don’t think you could be so damn annoying.”

He snorts. “Fine, whatever, I’m half a cyborg. Tenaya said I was like her, and she’s definitely more robot than human, though.”

“Tenaya lies,” Scott dismisses. “That’s her thing. Remember last week when she lured Ziggy out to the Corinth border and tried to set the mafia guys on him?”

“Yeah, but that’s…” Dillon trails off, his face tight with frustration. “It just seemed like she was telling the truth. This time. And it’s not like I have any memory to know if she’s wrong or not.”

Scott studies him, then says, slowly, “Do you think whatever answers you’re searching for… they might be with Tenaya and the Venjix team?”

Dillon curls his fingers into a fist, frowning. “Maybe.”

“Then…” Scott sits up straighter and takes a moment to press his bandages on, pulling on his shirt over them. “How about after you win that race for us, we stick a tracker on Tenaya’s car? Plan a mission, sneak into their headquarters, figure out what’s going on?”

“You haven’t already tried that?”

“She has, like, a million cheats on her car.” Scott opens the palm of his hand. “ _We_ can’t even touch it without that thing opening up a laser gun on us or something. But _you_ have cybernetics. You might be able to pull it off.”

Dillon mulls this over for a moment. “And if she sees us coming?”

Scott shrugs. “Then we fight. It’s what we do out here. Not like you’re bad at it, either.”

“Was that a compliment?”

“Don’t let it go to your head.”

 

 

 

It’s easy to tell that Dillon is nervous the night of the race—his fingers keep twitching, and he snaps at Ziggy more than usual—but Scott does him the favor of not pointing it out as they stand at the starting line of the Solaris Circle, surrounded by the other cars and the other teams. Everyone is talking, shouting taunts and bets across the street, teammates giving pep talks and mechanics fine-tuning the cars.

“Hey,” he says after Summer and Flynn have dragged Ziggy away from them so Dillon can focus on something else. “Look at me.”

Dillon does, but reluctantly, his gaze dark and stormy. It’s like he’s been zapped back to the guy they’d rescued from prison—untrusting, unyielding.

Scott sighs and digs into his pocket. “Got something for you.”

“What, like a good luck charm?” Dillon asks. “Didn’t think you’d be so sentimental, Truman—”

The teasing fades as soon as Scott pulls out the old pocket watch. Dillon’s eyes widen, startled, his edges blunting down.

“Summer and I went into Corinth and we, uh, liberated this from the prison guards last night,” Scott says casually. “She thought it might help you focus.”

Dillon’s expression cycles through five different shades of surprise. “You—how did you even know that was mine?”

“She’s got a good memory.” Scott takes Dillon’s hand and presses the pocket watch into it, since he’s made no move to take it from him. “You know what we’re doing here, Dillon. We wouldn’t have broken you out of prison if she—if _we_ didn’t have some modicum of faith in you.”

“We?” Dillon stares numbly down at his pocket watch, the silver of it glinting in the setting sun’s light. “You just needed a fourth.”

“We need _you_ ,” Scott says. “Don’t make me regret saying that.”

A smirk ghosts over Dillon’s lips. “Oh, you are definitely going to regret saying that.” But his face softens when he looks back up at Scott. “…Thanks.”

“Don’t get sappy on me now,” Scott says, grinning. “And remember, follow the path.”

Dillon slides the watch into the pocket of his jeans and squints up into the silvery-gold horizon instead of looking at Scott. “Yes, sir.”

Scott digs his elbow into Dillon’s side. “Or I’ll have to handcuff us together again.”

Dillon rolls his eyes dramatically. “Yes, _sir_.”

As the race begins, he stands with the rest of his team, gathered around Dillon’s car and watching as he starts the engine. They don’t say _good luck_ —it’s a tradition around the street racers, all except the newest teams, to never say good luck for fear of accidentally cursing their driver—but Ziggy unrolls a banner with a drawing of Dillon’s black car racing ahead of all the others which looks a little like it was drawn by a five-year-old and Flynn and Summer are both laughing and waving as the announcer counts down.

Scott catches Dillon’s eye once through the window—he’s been utterly focused on the road ahead, fingers gripping the steering wheel, but he drops his attention for one brief second to look at Scott—and flashes him a smile.

Dillon hesitates, and then—carefully, slowly—smiles back.

When the starting gun goes off, Scott counts down, _one-two-three_ , and then Dillon is off like a jet, a trail of smoke left in his wake.

 

 

 

“Did you get it?” Scott asks him, voice quiet, as they sit on the hood of Dillon’s car and watch the others light fireworks in the empty lot behind the Garage. Flynn has figured out the logistics of making the fireworks say things and as they explode into red and blue and yellow, they reveal phrases like ‘SUCK IT VENJIX’ and ‘TEAM RPM’.

Dillon’s smiling again. “Yeah.” He opens the app that Dr. K had programmed onto his phone, the tracking chip-locator, and shows him the red dot where Tenaya’s car is, out somewhere in the wastelands beyond the Strip. “Think we can find it?”

“I think we can do anything,” Scott tells him honestly.

The euphoria of Dillon’s first victory has left them all flush with excitement, all of them half-tipsy and Summer already detailing their line-up and plans for the next races. It’s just the five of them, and the computer that Dr. K speaks from, out back with the endless sky and a sputtering bonfire that Ziggy is attempting to start and their cars standing around them like bodyguards in the night.

They’ve won races before, but this is the first time that defeating the Venjix team feels like an actual possibility.

He looks at Dillon again, the moonlight slanting over his face, playing with the shadows. His hair is still windswept from the race; he keeps curling a hand over his pocket watch and then uncurling it, like he’s trying to get used to the weight of it again. His knees bump into Scott’s and his head tilts when he notices Scott watching him.

“What?”

“Nothing,” says Scott, downing a gulp of beer and looking back at where Ziggy is arguing with Dr. K over the proper way to start a bonfire. “Just… thinking about how we all ended up out here.”

“You broke me out of prison,” Dillon reminds him, deadpan.

Scott grins. “Most days, I don’t even regret it anymore.”

Dillon shakes his head with a huff of laughter, but there’s no snippy retort this time, only the quiet of his breathing as he looks at Scott. “Neither do I,” he admits.

Scott doesn’t move—at least, he doesn’t think he does—but somehow, some way, Dillon’s face is next to him and then it is closer and then he’s kissing him. It’s a little, just a little, like the sensation of the fight, with the fireworks going off and the noise and the chatter, the same sort of adrenaline rush, the same deep exhilaration winding into his bones.

But it’s different, too. So much about Dillon is a fight, a struggle, trying to hook his fingers into his heart and tug it out somewhere he can see—but Dillon isn’t fighting now. His palm comes up, pocket watch gone, the emptiness of his past somewhere far away, and he presses his hand against Scott’s cheek, and it feels like touching the future.

Scott breaks the kiss to catch his breath; his heart is hammering in his chest and every inch of his skin is prickling with electricity. “Thought I told you not to get sappy on me.”

“Shut up.” Dillon’s lips are twitching in a smile he can’t quite control. “It’s the vodka.”

“Stop drinking vodka,” Scott suggests, and reaches over to kiss him again just as the rest of the team finally gets the bonfire to burst into a rising flame high in the night sky.


End file.
